Polluter To Clean Up Waukegan Harbor

October 08, 1988|By Rob Karwath and Robert Enstad.

Outboard Marine Corp. has agreed to pay $20 million to remove hazardous levels of the toxic chemical PCB from Waukegan Harbor, state and federal officials announced Friday, ending a 10-year battle over the cleanup of one of the worst pollution sites in Illinois.

``It took us a long time, and it was a battle-very long and frustrating,`` said Valdas Adamkus, regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in announcing the agreement.

But Adamkus called the proposal ``a good agreement`` that will allow the EPA to spend money on other sites on the Superfund list, the roster of the country`s worst toxic dumps.

Under the agreement, spelled out in a tentative consent decree filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Outboard Marine agreed to pay for the project to remove PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) that the company dumped into the Lake Michigan harbor. A contractor will remove 98 percent of the PCB from the most polluted part of the harbor, the industrial north end, officials said.

When the cleanup is complete in 1992, soil and dried sediment containing safe levels of PCB will be stored in three landfills on the company`s property.

From at least 1961 to 1972, federal officials said, the company washed PCB-laden oil used in machines at its Waukegan die-casting factory into floor drains that emptied into the harbor.

More than 1 million pounds of PCB, a suspected carcinogen, is lodged in soil and sediment in concentrations ranging from 5 parts per million to 17,251 parts per million, a state study found. Federal standards classify more than 50 parts per million as hazardous.

Illinois Atty. Gen. Neil Hartigan, whose office intervened in court action to force the cleanup, said it was fair for Outboard Marine to foot the bill for the project. ``Taxpayers weren`t the polluters,`` he said. ``The polluters were OMC.``

Company spokesman Laurin Baker said the company hopes the agreement puts an end to years of what he said was unjustified bad publicity for Outboard Marine and legal wrangling that started in 1978, when the EPA sued to force the company to clean the harbor.

``Despite our continued reservation about the need for remedial action here, this action has gone on far too long,`` Baker said.

He said the dispute over cleanup ``resulted in an unjustified public perception about OMC as being unconcerned about the environment. In fact, because of our heavy involvement in recreational boating, we are ardent supporters of a clean environment.``

Outboard Marine, which has its headquarters in Waukegan, makes boat motors, small light industrial vehicles and lawn mowers.

Baker said the company started discussions in 1986 that led to Friday`s agreement. But state and federal officials said the company started negotiating only after it foresaw changes in federal law that probably would have allowed the EPA to proceed with a $27 million Superfund cleanup and would have resulted in damages against the company.

The EPA proposed the Superfund cleanup in 1984, but a federal appeals court stalled the plan by ruling that Outboard Marine could keep the EPA off its property. Congress changed the Superfund law in 1986 to allow the EPA to clean polluted property without the owner`s permission.

Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian said he was ``glad it`s finally over,``

but said he never was convinced that the harbor posed a danger to residents and recreational boaters. The Waukegan Port District`s marina, with about 1,000 slips, lies directly south of the harbor`s polluted industrial end.

Under the agreement, Outboard Marine will pay the $20 million into a trust fund that will be administered by an agent approved by state and federal officials. The administrator will select and pay the contractors who will clean up the harbor.

Work is to start next year with the construction of a retaining wall across ``Slip Three,`` the most heavily polluted part of the harbor. Workers will drain water from the slip, filter it and ship it to the North Shore Sanitary District

Contractors then will remove sediment from the bottom of Slip Three, as well as dredge nearby areas of the harbor`s north end. The sediment will be placed in a processor that will use heat to squeeze out the PCB oil.

The process also will remove nearly all of the PCB from the heavily contaiminated sediment and soil at sites along ditches where PCB oil flowed after being washed from the plant.

PCB that is removed from the sediment and soil will be hauled away and burned in an incinerator, according to the plan. By 1992, Slip Three and two land sites on the company`s property will be fenced-off landfills.

Before a federal judge approves the consent decree, the EPA must allow the public to comment about possible changes in the plan during the next month. The EPA will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Ramada Inn, 200 Green Bay Rd., Waukegan, to take comments. Comments also can be mailed to the EPA Office of Public Affairs, 230 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, 60604.